Elizabeth+Burns

In mid-November, 1910, 32-year-old Norwegian immigrant Pauline Braasch died in her Chicago home from an abortion performed there, possibly that same day. Dr. Elizabeth Burns, mistakenly identified in the Homicide in Chicago Database as a nurse or midwife, was indicted for felony murder in Pauline's death. The source has no record of the case going to trial.

The 1910 US Federal Census shows an Elizabeth Burns listed as a physician in Chicago. She was born in Indiana around 1866.

Burns was arrested on April 2, 1913, for performing an abortion (which was not fatal to the patient). ("Decatur Has Sensation," //Fort Wayne News//, Apr. 2, 1913) and she was acquitted in 1918 for the perpetration of an abortion on another surviving patient. ("Not Guilty," //Fort Wayne News and Sentinel//, Feb. 27, 1918) Burns was evidently quite able to bounce back from the abortion charges, because the August 14, 1918 //Fort Wayne Sentinel// has a blurb about Burns registering student nurses, and the April 7, 1919 //Sentinel// has a snippet about Burns performing gall bladder surgery on a local woman.